Some perspective from Anthony Dion

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Obama makes history

Barack Obama on Thursday accepted the democratic nomination for President and did so as the first minority, let alone African American, to be a major party nominee for President of the United States. This coming on the 45th anniversary of Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic “I have a dream speech.”

This post is coming well after the speech was given and the historic moment but only because I was unable to get to my personal computer to post my thoughts for reasons that are called work.

Words cannot describe what is felt at a moment like this. A moment which immediately becomes a landmark in time, a moment which defines our generation and those to come. Just 45 short years ago, this country was in the midst of the Civil Rights Era where blacks conducted “sit-ins” at white-only restaurants, where they were hosed down in the middle of streets with fire hoses and had dogs sic’d on them. From a time when the KKK roamed the streets of the south freely and blacks had to sit on the back of the bus in small little sections away from whites.

And now 45 long years later, we have a man who, like Dr. King, stands up for people regardless of the color of their skin and their sex; a man who stands tall above his peers and commands attention, obedience and leadership. Obama is a figure just like Dr. King that will stand out in time as one who changed not only America, but the World. He is of that character.

Obama is a clear leader. Someone who, as I already mentioned, commands attention from those around him. He has a presence that only few can carry. Whether you agree with his politics or not (I certainly do. Everything that needs to be done, from bringing our troops out of Iraq for good, boosting the economy, finding alternative fuel sources, keeping jobs in the U.S. rather than shipping them abroad, to protecting the environment and raising standards of education and salaries of our teachers — he will do and he will do the right way by not taxing the middle class and the poor but by taxing the upper 5% and big corporations who currently get more than enough tax breaks from the Republicans and will only continue to do so with McCain in office), you can’t deny that Obama is a leader that not only our citizens can respect, but the rest of the world’s population as well as the leaders abroad. You cannot disagree that Obama would be a terrific leader, in the same mold as a certain 16th President who came from Illinois some 145 years before him — Abraham Lincoln.

Obama is built of the same strength, of the same character as Lincoln. When he walks into a room he commands your attention. Both were/are seen as radical. Lincoln for his emancipation of the slaves and Obama for his race and relative inexperience in office.

But at the end of the day, both are tremendous leaders that stay true to their hearts and minds, to their core values and ethics that have been taught to them from an early age. What does it matter that the number of decisions you made? Shouldn’t we be more concerned with the QUALITY of those decisions? I certainly am.

When you have a candidate that has sided with President Bush (can we even still call him that) more than 90% of the time in his 26-year career in the senate versus a man who came out against the war in Iraq from the moment it was declared, a man who stands for universal health care, a balanced economic budget that will reduce our astronomical debt, and alternative energy and saving the environment among loads of other things — how can you not choose the latter?

How can you sit there in your home or in your office, read this, watch the speeches and still think that we can go thru another 4-years of a Republican regime? Look at what 8-years of Republicans in office has done for this great nation! Look at where it has brought us! Obama couldn’t have hit the nail on the head harder when he said “We are better than this!” last night.